China chose the perfect moment to indicate how little regard it has for the Obama Administration’s vaunted “pivot” to Asia. Just as President Obama held the first-ever summit on American soil with Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) leaders last month, Beijing deployed surface-to-air missiles on a disputed island in the South China Sea. As Fox News noted, “It is the same island chain where a U.S. navy destroyer sailed close to another contested island a few weeks ago. China at the time vowed ‘consequences’ for the action.
This latest South China Sea provocation demonstrated a complete disdain for past Obama Administration assertions – going back to then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s July 2010 statement at the ASEAN Regional Forum in Hanoi – regarding the American “national interest in freedom of navigation, open access to Asia’s maritime commons, and respect for international law in the South China Sea.
